Don’t look now but the past week has been a great week for the Pirates, winning five out of seven from the Cubs and Phillies. The offense still hasn’t been great, scoring 22 runs (3.14/game) but the pitching has really stepped up, allowing only 23 runs (3.29/g) with twelve of those coming in Saturday’s loss.

Small Sample Size fun: Pedro Alvarez has a seven game hitting streak (.333), has homered in back to back games (2) and has consecutive multi-hit games. Tim at Buccofans.com had a nice article last week about Brad Lincoln in his first four starts at a level compared to the rest of his starts there. Tonight is Brad’s sixth major league start and it comes in his hometown of Houston.